Truman established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights on December 5, 1946, and nearly a year later, in October 1947, the committee released its report. It covered a range of issues including discrimination in access to restaurants, hotel accommodations, and transportation. Growing up in a part of Missouri where Jim Crow laws still held sway, Truman shared some of the prejudices of his fellow Missourians. After this report, though, at great political risk, Truman began a campaign to fight combat civil injustice.

Based on this report, on July 26, 1948, Truman signed Executive Order 9980, which desegregated the federal work force, and Executive Order 9981, which ended segregation in the armed services.